In direct action the Nez Perce are blocking the transportation of over sized equipment to be used in the Canadian Tar Sands extraction through the two-lane highway in Idaho that passes through the Nez Perce reservation and a federally designated Wild and Scenic River corridor.

(Reuters) - Police arrested 19 members of the Nez Perce Tribe on Tuesday on suspicion of disorderly conduct for refusing to break a human chain blocking a highway in Idaho in protest against a 322-ton load of equipment bound for the tar sands of Alberta, Canada.

The blockade by more than 250 mostly Native American protesters halted travel of a so-called megaload for two hours on a scenic roadway at the front lines of an ideological struggle over North American oil and gas development and its impact on the environment, local communities and native cultures.

The Nez Perce said they staged the protest to oppose the shipment of massive oil refinery equipment along wild stretches of two prized Idaho rivers, the Clearwater and the Lochsa, and through Nez Perce and protected federal lands.

The 19 Nez Perce activists who were arrested by tribal police on Tuesday were later released on bail, authorities said. The megaload resumed its journey after the protest.

Nez Perce Chairman Silas C. Whitman said in a statement that tribal leaders were against "the conversion of this wild and scenic area into a high and wide industrial corridor."

The load, which measures 255 feet long, 21 feet wide and 23 feet tall, is one of two planned shipments by an Oregon hauling company, Omega Morgan, of a water purification unit being trucked to Alberta production fields, according to an Idaho transportation permit issued on Friday.

The route along U.S. Highway 95 and U.S. 12 follows a historic trail broken by early Nez Perce bison hunters and used in the early 19th century by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on a government-sponsored expedition that charted the newly purchased American West.

Megaload opponents say the oversize trucks may impair the visual and ecological values of the trail and a river corridor that supports threatened steelhead and Chinook salmon and fuels a tourist economy tied to rafting, fishing, camping and hunting.

The Omega Morgan load, which will take four nights to cross Idaho into Montana, was approved by Idaho over the objections of environmentalists and despite U.S. Forest Service concerns.

"This is a quiet, winding mountain highway through a beautiful river canyon, not an industrial park," said Kevin Lewis, conservation director of Idaho Rivers United.

The Forest Service had sought to stop the shipment pending a study of its social, economic and ecological impacts.

Omega Morgan spokeswoman Olga Haley said an Idaho permit allowed the shipment to proceed but declined further comment. Clearwater County Commissioner Don Ebert supported the shipments.

"What are we going to stop next? We have to have commerce in this country," he said.

SEATTLE — A federal judge ordered a halt on Friday to more shipments of immense loads of oil field equipment through a national forest in north-central Idaho, pending a broad review of effects on the route

The review will be conducted by the United States Forest Service in consultation with the Nez Perce Indians, whose tribal rights and lands near the forest route were central to the judge’s ruling.

The case was brought by the Nez Perce tribe and an environmental group, Idaho Rivers United, charging that the Forest Service had failed to enforce its own rules and standards in protecting the forest and a river corridor through which a first shipment, known as a megaload and bound for Canada’s tar sands oil fields, was sent last month. A second shipment was scheduled for next week. The loads are more than 250 feet long and weigh about 644,000 pounds.

“The plaintiffs are not seeking damages; they are seeking to preserve their treaty rights along with cultural and intrinsic values that have no price tag,” Chief Judge B. Lynn Winmill of Federal District Court in Boise wrote in his preliminary injunction order, siding with the tribe.

Idaho Rivers United’s executive director, Bill Sedivy, said the implications for river protection could also echo far beyond Idaho. “River managers across the United States are watching this decision,” he said.

Leaders of the tribe were among the protesters arrested in early August for trying to block or delay the first equipment load as it headed for the boundary line of the four-million-acre Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests. The route through the forest, in which the tribe still has treaty rights, is part of a federally protected Wild and Scenic Rivers corridor, a fact that was also cited by the judge in his order.

The equipment supplier, Resources Conservation Company International, an affiliate of General Electric, said in a statement that the injunction delayed delivery of machinery that could save billions of gallons a year in water, which is used in vast amounts in the type of oil recovery used at the tar sands. The company also said it was reviewing its options. “There are significant environmental benefits associated with these particular shipments,” the company said.

The Forest Service said in a statement that it was reviewing the decision and that it would comply with the order to ban further transports temporarily.

The equipment company said in court documents that shipment delays could cost the company millions of dollars. And with the road ordered closed pending the review, there is little incentive for tribal leaders to race through the process.

“It’s going to take whatever time is necessary,” said Michael Anthony Lopez, a lawyer for the tribe.

"The equipment company said in court documents that shipment delays could cost the company millions of dollars. And with the road ordered closed pending the review, there is little incentive for tribal leaders to race through the process."

"The equipment company said in court documents that shipment delays could cost the company millions of dollars. And with the road ordered closed pending the review, there is little incentive for tribal leaders to race through the process."

Hau Koda,

It does my heart good to see the Wasicu get shot in the wallet

Now perhaps the Lakota in the Dakotas can Sioux them if they continue with plans for the pipeline.

LAPWAI, Idaho — In this remote corner of the Northwest, most people think of gas as something coming from a pump, not a well. But when it comes to energy, remote isn’t what it used to be.

The Nez Perce tribe has lived in this corner of North Central Idaho for thousands of years.

The Nez Perce Indians, who have called these empty spaces and rushing rivers home for thousands of years, were drawn into the national brawl over the future of energy last month when they tried to stop a giant load of oil-processing equipment from coming through their lands.

The setting was U.S. Highway 12, a winding, mostly two-lane ribbon of blacktop that bisects the tribal homeland here in North Central Idaho.

That road, a hauling company said in getting a permit for transit last month from the state, is essential for transporting enormous loads of oil-processing equipment bound for the Canadian tar sands oil fields in Alberta.

When the hauler’s giant load arrived one night in early August, more than 200 feet long and escorted by the police under glaring lights, the tribe tried to halt the vehicle, with leaders and tribe members barricading the road, willingly facing arrest. Tribal lawyers argued that the river corridor, much of it beyond the reservation, was protected by federal law, and by old, rarely tested treaty rights.

And so the Nez Perce, who famously befriended Lewis and Clark in 1805, and were later chased across the West by the Army (“I will fight no more forever,” Chief Joseph said in surrender, in 1877), were once again drawn into questions with no neat answers: Where will energy come from, and who will be harmed or helped by the industry that supplies it?

Tribal leaders, in defending their actions, linked their protest of the shipments, known as megaload transports, to the fate of indigenous people everywhere, to climate change and — in terms that echo an Occupy Wall Street manifesto — to questions of economic power and powerlessness.

“The development of American corporate society has always been — and it’s true throughout the world — on the backs of those who are oppressed, repressed or depressed,” said Silas Whitman, the chairman of the tribal executive committee, in an interview.

Mr. Whitman called a special meeting of the committee as the transport convoy approached, and announced that he would obstruct it and face arrest. Every other board member present, he and other tribe members said, immediately followed his lead.

“We couldn’t turn the cheek anymore,” said Mr. Whitman, 72.

The dispute spilled into Federal District Court in Boise, where the Nez Perce, working alongside an environmental group, Idaho Rivers United, carried the day. Chief Judge B. Lynn Winmill, in a decision this month, halted further transports until the tribe, working in consultation with the United States Forest Service, could study their potential effect on the environment and the tribe’s culture.

The pattern, energy and lands experts said, is clear even if the final outcome here is not: What happens in oil country no longer stays in oil country.

“For the longest time in North America, you had very defined, specific areas where you had oil and gas production,” said Bobby McEnaney, a senior lands analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. A band stretching up from the Gulf of Mexico into the Rocky Mountains was about all there was.

But now, Mr. McEnaney said, the infrastructure of transport and industrial-scale production, not to mention the development of hydraulic fracturing energy recovery techniques, and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, are affecting more and more places.

The Nez Perce’s stand, in a way, makes Mr. McEnaney’s point. The tribe’s fight, and the galvanizing decision by its leaders to step in front of the transport, drew in people who had not been involved before.

“Our history is conservative. You don’t go to court, you don’t fight,” said Julian Matthews, another tribe member. The fighting stance by tribal leadership, he said, was partly driven by pressure from members like him, already pledged to opposition.

Others described the board’s decision as a thunderbolt. After the special meeting where leaders agreed they would face arrest together, the news blazed through social media on and off the reservation.

“Everybody knew it in an hour,” said Angela Picard, who came during the four nights of protest when the load was still on tribal lands, and was one of 28 tribe members arrested.

Pat Rathmann, a soft-spoken Unitarian Universalist church member in Moscow, Idaho, heard the new tone coming from the reservation. A debate over conservation and local environmental impact, she said, had suddenly become a discussion about the future of the planet.

“The least I could do was drive 30 miles to stand at their side,” said Ms. Rathmann, whose church has declared climate change to be a moral issue, and recently sponsored a benefit concert in Moscow to raise money for the tribal defense fund.

The equipment manufacturer, a unit of General Electric, asked the judge last week to reconsider his injunction, partly because of environmental impacts of not delivering the loads. Millions of gallons of fresh water risk being wasted if the large cargo — water purification equipment that is used in oil processing — cannot be installed before winter, the company said.

“Although this case involves business interests, underlying this litigation are also public interests surrounding the transportation of equipment produced in the U.S. for utilization in wastewater recycling that benefits the environment,” the company said.

The risks to the Nez Perce are also significant in the months ahead. Staking a legal case on treaty rights, though victorious so far in Judge Winmill’s court, means taking the chance, tribal leaders said, that a higher court, perhaps in appeal of the judge’s decision, will find those rights even more limited than before.

But for tribe members like Paulette Smith, the summer nights of protest are already being transformed by the power of tribe members feeling united around a cause.

“It was magic,” said Ms. Smith, 44, who was among those arrested. Her 3-year-old grandson was there with her — too young to remember, she said, but the many videos made that night to document the event will one day help him understand. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/us/fi ... ROgw&_r=1&

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